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NOPD chief apologizes for not disclosing police shot man in head

Superintendent Ronal Serpas fall 2013

New Orleans Police Department Chief Ronal Serpas on Wednesday acknowledged his department failed to notify the public about a police-involved shooting that left a man with a head wound. Serpas apologized for the lack of transparency at a Wednesday afternoon press conference staged after NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune reported for the first time that a man has been hospitalized for the serious but not life threatening injury.
(NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)

NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune on Monday asked NOPD about the incident after being notified of a situation in Algiers that put an officer's life in danger. NOPD did not respond to a request for comment at the time. And the department has not responded to a public-records request.

A lawyer for the wounded man contacted NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune on Wednesday afternoon. NOPD responded only after the article was published.

"I personally authorized a press release on Monday at noon," Serpas said at the news conference.

Prior to the NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune story disclosing the shooting, NOPD's only publicly available information made no mention of a civilian's injury. A summary of the incident, send by the Public Information Office supervised by Serpas, read in its entirety:

Officer was in area, heard shots fried (sic),,had altercation with subject and sustained minor injury to right hand. The officer was taken to Tulane Hospital by unit 1420.

It was classified not as a shooting but as an officer in need of assistance, whose life was in danger.

Serpas said Officer Lisa Lewis fired two shots, one of which struck Armand Bennett, 26, in the head at his "hairline." Serpas said Lewis and her partner, Officer Patrick Guidry, approached Bennett's car because she recognized him and his car from an encounter the week prior, in which he ran away from her.

After that prior incident, Lewis wrote warrants for Bennett on four counts: illegal possession of a weapon, resisting an officer, possession of marijuana and criminal damage to property, Serpas said. Bennett also had an outstanding warrant from Gretna on a charge of resisting an officer.

On Monday, Lewis was treated for a minor hand injury, NOPD has said.

"It is highly unusual in your own history with me in the last five years that we have not reported an event where an officer's been arrested - we obviously do that - when they've been involved in the discharge of a weapon, we obviously do that," Serpas said. "What I hope is the case, that evidence is on our side, that this is not what we normally do."

About the apparently unsent press release, he said, "I find it simply unacceptable to you and to the public that our office failed to get the information out."

The police department has a press office with three sworn police officers and civilian employees. Mayor Mitch Landrieu's press office has been assisting in media relations since the departure of a chief spokesperson.

Stay with NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune for more on this breaking story.